Gastroduodenal perforation after open heart surgery.

During a thirty month period, 319 patients underwent open heart operations, and of these, three experienced a life-threatening explosive abdominal catastrophe. Aggressive radiographic maneuvers established the diagnosis of gastroduodenal perforation. Appropriate abdominal surgery with plication of the perforation and, whenever possible, the establishment of tube gastrostomy for decompression and a tube jejunostomy for feeding is desirable. All three patients required mechanical ventilatory support and tracheostomy prior to the abdominal catastrophe. Prophylactic antacids and sedation seem appropriate, particularly for selected patients (those with a prior peptic history and those with pulmonary dysfunction). Pulmonary toilet for those identified by preoperative pulmonary screening may circumvent the need for postoperative ventilatory support, which increases the risk of stress ulceration. Of the three patients described, all survived the gastrointestinal surgery but only one left the hospital. One died twenty days and another forty-eight days after the intestinal surgery, both of pneumonitis and septicemia.